Fran Curci tidbits on Joker, Louisville, Ramsey
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Published on 08-30-2012 09:07 PM
1976 SEC and Peach Bowl Champion team coached by Fran Curci
By: LARRY VAUGHT
Here are thoughts former Kentucky Fran Curci shared on a variety of other subjects:
— Playing Louisville.
“I always wanted to play Louisville. I tried to play Louisville. (Kentucky athletics director) Cliff Hagan didn’t want to do that. He said if we play in football, we will have to play them in basketball. I said, ‘So what?’ My proposal was, and it would have happened, I wanted to play them every year in Lexington and we get all the money, maybe give them a little bit, and we would get the win. That’s the way I felt about it. They didn’t want any part of that, but things have changed. Back then, that’s the way everybody felt.”
— Advice for UK coach Joker Phillips.
“Just keep doing what you are doing. All he can do is try to get the best players you can. One of the things I always wished I could do was on offense have a set style. I had to change every year to what I had. I never really had an offense to say this is my offense. I think Joker is in that position right now trying to plug guys into his offense and you better hope they are the guys who can do that.”
— On Phillips winning at Kentucky.
“I don’t know if you can whether it is Joker or anybody. You have to be able to go out and get players. Here is what happens. As a coach you come in, and I think we won more SEC games in first year than other guy (John Ray) had won in four years. Everybody got a little excited and our recruiting method was to tell players they could help us build a program and you will be a lot more famous for it than by going to somewhere that is a power. We got some really good players to buy into that. I think Joker has done a pretty good job with players, but does he have enough fast enough and does he have enough to sustain in this league. I don’t know.
“The SEC is so dominant and now wants to open its own TV network. They are going to keep getting the best kids in the SEC. You are in that league and if you are in that league, you better get the same players everybody else is getting. That is where Kentucky really has to pick it up. I don’t know. It is just hard to play in that league.”
— Coaching salaries.
“The most I ever made was $46,000. Looking back and if we had won a championship, I would have made $4 or $5 million now. Heck, offensive coordinators make more than any head coach ever did when I was coaching.”
— Former UK quarterback Derrick Ramsey.
“Ramsey, you talk about a special athlete. We built our whole offense around him. We had three mediocre backs and Derrick. He would run bootlegs and you could see those defensive backs wanting no part of him. They couldn’t tackle him. He could throw the ball probably 10 yards on a good day, but he was an athlete.”
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